Constellations
by Wilhelmina Willoughby
Summary: It's easy for Percy to forget that he spends his life in a ship, enclosed by metal walls that are his only protection from the gaping expanse of vacuum outside. As a disgraced, declared-dead CAMP soldier, he takes odd jobs at the edges of Federation space just to keep his crew happy and his ship running. He's never wanted to be a hero, but when has fate ever listened to him?
1. One

_So: I am in love with sci-fi, and space, and I wanted to put the PJO characters in that world. Just imagine PJO with a little bit of your favorite space-faring movies and shows and games, and that is this. I do not claim to be any kind of expert on the realities of space or ships or futuristic societies, nor do I own any of these characters. Just having fun writing, and I hope you'll have some fun reading._

* * *

Spaceport 49.

Full of rust and old air and home to near a thousand people. Forgotten ones, most: families from failed colonies, retired and disgraced soldiers, criminals, traders, adventurers with nowhere else to go. The old and sick and lost. The first time Percy ever saw the port, in those desperate days right after he'd been booted from CAMP, so many years ago, was from the cockpit of his own ship as it limped toward a dock—_it'd looked so small and run-down, compared to the perfect silver labyrinth of the CAMP base, and he'd wondered how this little port was even functional at the edges of Federation space. _

Now, it rests in its same place, unmoving through space, unchanged. Five crooked, reaching arms affixed to a central hub, lined with blinking lights and half a hundred smaller docks. Late-model, piecemeal ships landing to refuel and resupply before drifting out to space. Debris crowding the arms. Panels peeling loose. Paint long worn away.

Impossibly surviving. Much like the people inside, he supposes.

Perhaps it's that unlikely reliability that keeps him coming back. That, or the fact that the port does lie so close to the borders, close enough for him to go to ground, if he needs to. After everything that happened with CAMP, sometimes all that matters is being just far enough away.

And here? Here he can be nobody. Just as forgotten as everybody else.

"Captain," his pilot says, her voice smooth and even, the tone she takes when she's trying to hide her laughter. Usually at him. "Approaching dock."

He nods, leans against the back of her chair. "Bring us in smooth, Pipes."

Gently she pushes forward against the hard-light holo-controls, glowing soft blue against her hands. Outside the wide window in front of them, a door inches open, slow as can be, at the side of the hub, revealing a large, empty room and a wide set of doors that lead to the main garage. Docking clamps wait along the floor and walls to grab the ship into lock. Piper's hands are steady at the controls as she moves the ship into place.

_Steady_, he thinks, remembering when she was not, remembering the way the ship would tremble as she did behind the controls. _Watch the starboard wing. Push us lower. Slow, slow and steady._

"I've got it."

Percy releases his grip on the chair and crosses his arms. "I didn't say anything."

"I can feel you freaking," she says. Eyes narrowed, lips pursed. Decidedly not looking at his fingers drumming against his elbow. "Shut your eyes or something."

He does. He closes his eyes and places his faith and his ship entirely in Piper's hands, closes his eyes and breathes… but the empty black beneath his eyelids doesn't help. So he watches instead as she guides the ship into dock without incident, watches the clamps shut, watches the lights on the control panel blink the all-clear, reflecting on Piper's face as she leans back and grins at him.

"We're green, Captain."

He exhales. "Knew you could do it."

"You didn't, but thanks for saying so." Her smile slips, if only for a moment, and then it morphs to a smirk, too sharp. "So," she says, crossing her legs, planting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. "You change your mind about letting me in on this shore leave?"

"Supply pick up, not leave," he says, pointing at her. There's a heartbeat of silence, Piper's inhale, and then Percy says, "And before you say it, the only reason Leo's going is to choose what parts we need to keep the engine going."

She groans. "Come on, Captain. I haven't left the ship in weeks. I feel like my ass is growing to my chair."

Her eyes are wide and beguiling and shameless, just as they are every other time she manages to talk him into something, and he's not falling for it this time. Not when he needs someone to stay with the ship. Not when it needs to be someone quick enough to get them out of port if something goes sideways (_when, _he tells himself, _when things go sideways, because there's always something, an accident or incident or some peripheral noise that raises the hairs on the back of his neck, a fight-or-flight go, run, go instinct_).

With a sigh, he falls into the co-pilot's chair next to her, stretches his legs to rest in the little aisle that runs between the consoles. Percy laces his fingers together on his stomach; Piper steeples hers and rests the tips of her fingers against her chin.

They stare.

Finally Percy says, "Remember when you had shore leave last? You got arrested."

"That was an _accident_."

"He was a diplomat. And you broke his nose."

"He deserved it!"

"Not saying he didn't. I wanted to see you take that guy to the ground," Percy says, remembering the vivid well of blood that fell from the man's shocked face, the crooked angle of his nose, Piper's clenched fists and deep frown that was at once anger and triumph. He remembers, too, the paparazzi and their cameras. "But it was on the Net that next minute, and you know we can't get caught that close to CAMP, Pipes. They'd take you and Leo into custody, open up the ship, and once they found the engine, they'd probably make sure Grover and I were dead for real this time."

She sighs. The exhale takes the stiffness from her spine, and she sinks low in her chair, pulling her knees to her chest. "What about your advisor? Wouldn't he—"

And here, Percy almost laughs. "What, protect me? Stick his neck out for me. If anybody there found out I was alive—and that he and the Director let me go, with _his _ship—it'd be his ass on the line."

"But he claimed you. They told us that _meant _something."

"Yeah," Percy says.

The word hangs between them, quiet.

Eighteen years old, he thinks as she tilts her chair toward the console. Piper is eighteen and out here in the black and after everything she's seen, she still believes.

If the past four years hadn't happened the way they had, if, maybe, he'd stayed on Earth, or been chosen by another advisor, or been successful in his mission—if something had gone differently, would he see the hope in the light of the stars the way Piper does? Or would he still only see the gaping, dark spaces in between?

**.o.O.o.**

There are days he curses CAMP and all of his years there, but most others, he's almost thankful.

He owns a ship. It's his, even if he inadvertently stole it, and even if he definitely had a hand in stealing the half-finished engine prototype. Once he'd made it far enough through his training, the Director had taken him to the massive garage deck on the CAMP base, claiming to have a surprise for him, and when the doors opened—_the way it sat there, sleek and compact and gleaming a bright black sheen, the word _Anaklusmos _written on its side in bold, flowing letters; the way the Director gripped Percy's shoulder, and his words, "We've been waiting for a successful Poseidon candidate for a while now. When you're through, you'll have this ship to command."_

His, waiting for him before he even left Earth.

If he'd believed in something like fate, he'd felt it that day in the cool balloon of air in his lungs, the skip in his breath as he ran his hand across the cool metal hull.

The path he takes now through its halls is instinctual. Out of the cockpit, through the bridge, down the stairs and through the second deck, past the storage rooms, and down into the cargo bay, where Grover waits for him, sitting on a crate. He is focused on a worn piece of paper on his lap. As he reads, his furry legs swing back and forth, his hooves tapping an uneven rhythm on the edge.

"Hey," Percy calls, laughing when Grover nearly slips off the crate. "Sorry. You ready?"

Grover fumbles to fold the paper and slip it into his vest pocket. "Yeah. Still waiting on Leo."

"My favorite game."

"He said he forgot something he needed for his list? And then he ran back down to the engine room. Sure we won't see him for a while."

Percy's sure that's true, but they have a schedule to keep here, as minor as it is. He walks over to the comm panel and pushes the button for the engine room. "Leo! Get down here or we're leaving without you."

A brief pause of crackling, followed by a loud bang, and then Leo shouts, "Coming! Coming, gods, will you wait for like, two minutes?"

"Nope, got to go now. We have that salvage we have to swing by in a few days, remember?"

Silence.

Grover laughs. "That salvage near the Didyma System? The one he's been talking about for weeks now?"

"Figured it'd get him moving," Percy says, grinning. He reaches down to adjust his boots and makes sure his pistol's tucked safely into his belt. While not completely prohibited, weapon-carrying is highly frowned upon on Spaceport 49—and with weak security, vigilantes, and criminals holing up in the same space, it means everybody who can get their hands on a gun likely has one.

Footsteps pound down the hallway, step heavy and quick down the stairs. Leo emerges with his hands full of junk and his coveralls covered in grease and mumbling curses just loud enough for Percy to hear.

"I'm here, I'm here, and I hate you."

"And you smell. Badly." Percy puts his hand on Leo's shoulder and steers him toward the open bay ramp. Grover slides off his crate and follows. As they step off the ramp and make their way toward the large doors that will take them through the garage, Percy's ear comm chirps. _B-beep!_

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Piper sings.

"That isn't a whole lot."

"Hey!" _B-beep!_

"Hey Boss." Leo jams his elbow into Percy's ribs, loses his grip on a battered old tablet. Grover catches it, tries to balance it in Leo's arms as they continue to walk, and then thinks better of it. Leo nods in thanks. He glances at the thing every few steps as if it's likely to explode. "You think we could swing by that place across from Horace's taco stand?"

Grover's eyes light. "He puts _anything _in a taco."

"Yeah," Percy says, pulling open the garage doors. He could go for a taco. Hell, anything non-dried or pill-shaped and he'd probably inhale it. "Let's go."

As the doors to their dock swing shut on Percy's ship, as the full, busy noise of Spaceport 49 welcomes them, Percy feels himself relax.

There's something about this place. Ship crew amble through the garage, toting wrenches, or parts, or, as one man does, a cluster of wires in his mouth, a baby. Grover ducks out of the way of a two Harpies and a woman carrying a large metal wing; Percy helps another Satyr trying to push a jack underneath his transport jeep; Leo juggles the mess in his arms. They pass more and more people as they approach the doors to the hub—people dressed just as they are, in scuffed boots and age-worn pants and almost-white shirts that haven't seen a wash in a while; used, worn, well-loved clothes, thin leathers in Earth browns, cottons in a faded rainbow of colors, all such a contrast to his old monotone fatigues. As they walk, Percy counts more than a dozen hidden guns, tries to ignore the way Grover sneezes as they enter the crowded marketplace, and focuses instead on Leo, who is short and disappears easily and is watching the second tablet in his arms instead of where he's going.

"We need a leash," Grover tells Percy, taking the back of Leo's arm and tugging him out of the way of a large Cyclops stomping through the crowd.

Leo shakes his head. He still hasn't looked up. "We do not need a leash."

Grover keeps hold of him anyway, right until they reach Leo's favorite electronics store and the kid barely holds himself from running inside. Percy and Grover hover at Horace's taco stand for a while. Grover gets a fish enchilada (_where does the fish come from? _Percy wonders, has wondered before, as it is slightly gray-purple and bumpy and smells like flowers, and that can't be normal, right?), and Percy settles on a veggie wrap. They talk about tacos for a while. It is probably Grover's favorite subject. Eventually Grover orders a second enchilada, then a third, and they say goodbye to Horace to wait for Leo.

From their position, leaning against the wall of the store his engineer is looking to spend all their money in, Percy can watch the steady flow of people through the busy market. This central hub of the spaceport is a large ring, with different sectors that include apartments and business offices and medical clinics, a small section of research development, and the rest devoted to shipping and storage. Sector B, here, is supposed to be a simple line of stores, but has grown to a teeming marketplace, with vendors of all races setting up shop next to the storefronts and often in the middle of the corridor.

It's a loud, near claustrophobic mess of boxes and music and bodies, unfamiliar smells and languages and colors, but watching the flow of people and letting everything wash over him is somehow comforting. Which is why, when Grover takes a huge bite and turns to Percy with gray-purple fish chunks hanging out of his mouth, Percy is first grossed out, then confused.

"Stop worrying," Grover manages to say.

And what is it today with his crew bossing him around? "I'm not worrying," he says, balling up the greasy wrapper and tossing it into a nearby bin. "I'm feeling pretty good about this. Leo gets his parts, we swing by Smithson's for our ration order, and then we're good."

"Worrying," Grover says. "Know how I know you're lying? Know how I _always _know you're lying?"

"Don't say 'empathy link.'"

"Empathy link," he says, tapping at his forehead. The slight curl of his horns peek out from his hair. The first time Percy felt the hint of Grover's emotions—_the heavy press of worry against his chest, confusion, a heady sense of wonderment, because these links, he remembered from his studies, were forever 'til death—_he thought, first, not about actually feeling somebody else's emotions, but that his best friend was an alien with furry legs and hooves and horns, and wasn't _that _weird?

"And anyway," Grover continues, "We're fine. This place has been running since you humans started building them out here. I mean, look at the rust on these walls—"

Percy laughs as Grover motions to the nearby walls. Old, yeah, he gets it. Old and safe and totally, completely reliable, in all its patched-up, air-tight glory. By the time their food vendor is ready to talk and Leo comes out of the electronics store, a small knit bag over his shoulder and his face drawn, Grover has finished up his third enchilada and is ready to bargain with the vendor, Smithson.

They order several crates of ration bars and powdered food and nutrient capsules. Grover talks the vendor into discounting a few refrigerated boxes of frozen meat. Leo orders himself an enchilada from Horace. Keeping an ear on the negotiations (and an eye on Leo, who has no misgivings about stealing right under the vendor's nose, not to mention whatever he might've stolen from the electronics store), Percy circles the cart, examining clusters of weird-looking pink and purple gourds, long spears of red grass, a basket of green, knobby stems that smell like aloe. He's surprised to find, in the back, almost hidden, a small carton of strawberries.

They're small and jewel-red and he thinks of Piper, back at the ship, alone.

He picks the carton up and leans in to peer at each individual seed as if he knows that he's looking for. "These ground-grown?"

The vendor nods, proud. "Straight from a colony on Goshill, sir."

"How much?"

"For these? Hundred credits easy."

A hundred credits. For strawberries.

Leo voices his disapproval. They've played this game too many times before. Poor Smithson. "What a rip-off! I know a guy down near Sector C who has some fruit _from Earth _at half that."

Percy narrows his eyes and motions Grover closer, hands over the carton. "These real?"

"That's kind of racist of you, Percy." He stares at the berries anyway. Smithson glances between them as Grover sniffs at the carton. His nose wrinkles. "Lots of chemicals, man. Made in a lab or highly fertilized. Doesn't seem likely for a colony export. Smells kind of like Mist, too. Not good."

Percy nods. "Knock fifty credits off your price and I won't let it get around that you're ripping off your customers. And another two hundred off the crates of rations we're ordering, too."

The vendor readily agrees to this, at once apologetic to Percy and Grover and outraged at his supplier—and Percy almost, almost feels bad about his manipulation until he thinks about the state of his accounts and how little he has to spend. He's about as poor as a captain can be without permanently docking his ship.

He signs for his rations and arranges for pickup at the docking bay, takes the box of strawberries, and is turning to follow Grover and Leo back when something catches his eye.

A tiny green light. Blinking. Right between two metal crates just a few feet away.

And it's not instinct that pulls him toward it—that is screaming loudly, _run, go, run, this is not your problem, not anymore_—but a curiosity, a trained reflex to investigate. Hidden lights often spell bad news.

It's probably not a good thing he's drawn toward calamity.

"What is that," he murmurs, kneeling to get a better look. He wriggles his fingers between the crates and pulls them apart. Attached to the side of the crate on the right is a small device. Sleek, circular, ringed with lights. Cool to the touch.

His world narrows.

It's easy for Percy to forget, sometimes, that he spends his life in ships, enclosed by metal walls that are his only protection from the gaping expanse of vacuum outside. The remembering part comes much easier—when their gravity core malfunctions and he loses his footing on the ground, or he hears about someone being tossed out a hatch or trapped in an airlock, or he simply looks outside a viewport.

Stars and nebulae and planets, distant galaxies, blackness as far as he can see, farther than he can fathom—it all looks back at him. Always. No matter how quickly the wide stretch of space became his new sea once he left Earth, it's not hard to remind himself that he cannot hold the universe in his lungs. Because drowning out there? No escape from the frost in your bones and the sucking emptiness in your lungs and the pounding beat of your own panic in your ears, right behind your eyes, in every pump of your near-bursting heart?

It's woken him up in a choking panic before.

And all these people, crammed inside this port, breathing the same recycled, stale air that's probably hundreds of years old, happily forgetful of the fact that it'd take a single hull breach or cracked viewport to crush their lungs inside their bodies—

It's all he can think about as he realizes what it is he is looking at.

A bomb.

And perhaps it's not big enough to wipe out this whole section of the port, but it's enough to open a hole in a few floors, at least—and it's already counting down the seconds—its presence mocking him to react, to _move_—

_equip breather, disarm if possible, clear area of civilians, locate possible suspect_

—and Leo, Leo moves first. Forward instead of away. It's the reality of Leo's reaching hands—_hands that invent and fix and create, long-fingered and nimble, gentle around the broken wounds of his ship, hands that can't afford to be blown to blood and gristle_—that brings Percy back . As quickly, he grabs for the back of Leo's collar and pulls until he falls back into Percy's chest.

_Leash. They need a leash._

"Hey—!"

Grover: "Percy?"

Civilians. So many civilians. _He _is a civilian, now, and he should remember that, but that green light is still blinking. Blinking. Blinking. Three seconds. Four. _Move._

"Bomb," he says. Then, louder, shouting over the bustle of the marketplace, over the music and voices and moving bodies, over the roar in his head, "Bomb! Clear the area! Move, move, now!"

He pushes Leo back. People in the area start to back away. Smithson and Horace pale and abandon their cars. Percy's hands are steady as he pulls the lid off the crate and yanks the device off the side. It's so small and cold in his hands, winking up at him, the contained potential of a newborn star. A woman sees it, screams. It ignites the crowd. People climb over carts, try to shove their way through the narrow spaces between one another. How many seconds has he lost? How many more do they have to get as far away as possible?

Will it be far enough?

He tosses the device into the box and shoves the lid shut. There's no lock. That won't matter. Grover and Leo are still there when he turns around, and he's too focused to be angry.

"We can't just let it go," Leo shouts. Percy takes the back of Leo's shirt again and pushes him through the crowd. "Captain, I can disarm it. Let me go! I can do it!"

Someone falls into Percy's side, knocks him into Grover, almost loosens his grip on Leo. Spaceport 49 Security—_finally doing their jobs, and where were they to prevent this from happening, anyway_—try to form some kind of order, but there is nothing but mayhem, a writhing mass of panic, and too many people between here and the docking bay.

He presses his ear comm. _B-beep!_ "Piper. Can you hear me? Tell me they haven't shut down comms."

For a long moment there is only silence from the other end. Leo trips over someone and apologizes, is unable to resist the flow of the crowd and the hand pushing him ever forward. Grover is somewhere to their right. An alarm is triggered and blares shrill over the port-wide intercom, sings through the metal walls. Percy feels his heart grow cold.

Then, _b…b-beeeeep!_ and Piper's voice in his ear: "No, yeah, I—ave you. What—ing on? Th—lot of cha—ou guys over there?"

"Transmission's breaking up," Percy shouts. "We're headed back to the docking bay. Get the ship ready to go as soon as we make it back."

"—said—en a bomber, or som—ow what's going on!"

"Yeah. There's going to be an explosion," he says, and feels himself pushed forward by the crowd. The end of Sector B is in sight, yards away, where a hall branches off the main hub to docking bay 3. They've only made it two stores down. If they can just get there—

Grover stiffens. He reaches for Percy—a lifetime away, a girl's voice, knowing, _Satyrs are especially protective of their assigned operative, Jackson, and with a link, they'll keep you safe no matter the cost_—and Percy falls into Leo, shielding him, to the ground. The hair raises on the back of his neck, and the _sound_, the sound that follows expands, swells in his head, nearly knocks him blind.


	2. Two

Ten minutes until the next block.

Annabeth tosses her bag on her desk and releases a breath. Out, then in, and hold. A long stretch toward the ceiling. Cracks along her spine, along the slow roll of her neck. Breathe out.

Five classes a day and she's still going strong. For a brief moment she looks longingly toward her bunk—she could take a few minutes and slip out of her uncomfortable jumpsuit, have a quick power nap, ease the headache curled up against her temples. Just a few minutes.

Her tablet beeps.

_Well, there goes that idea, _she thinks, pulling the thing from her bag, keying it open. She's got a few new messages from Director Chiron, one from Travis Stoll about tutoring, one from Clarisse regarding who knows what, and at the top, the most recent and marked urgent, from an unknown sender. Interesting. Even more interesting when she opens it and finds the screen flooded with undulating strings of numbers and letters and symbols, messy and unpatterned.

Her fingers still. Unknown sender, layers of encryption. Something like excitement tickles through her arms. It could be one of her advisor's tests or another stupid prank—that message from Stoll is starting to look suspicious, since when does he care about tutoring—but it could be something else. Something real.

Ten minutes until the next block.

She hangs her bag on her chair and sits down, hooks her tablet up to the larger unit on her desk. The holo screen lights up immediately, stretches up and out wide in front of her, her tablet turning into a keyboard. In front of her, expanded on screen, the lines of encryption blur and dance before her eyes, shake themselves sharp into distinct shapes as she loses herself in unraveling the knots of code.

And then it's there, garbled and full of static, but a sound: _—wh—d… very—sk but… no time—to 49… ant th—out. _

Long-range. Second-hand, maybe. She tries it again, but it's not any clearer, the same bursts of silence and noise. She moves that to the side with a wave of her hand and focuses instead on the sender, scoffing at the attempt at anonymity. It doesn't take long to trace the source.

Marin System, ship 143-1B registered _Princess Andromeda._

Annabeth pauses on an inhale, stops moving, fingers hovering frozen over her keyboard.

It can't be. It _can't _be.

Again and again she runs the trace. There must've been a mistake. An error in her coordinates, a missed number in her algorithm, _something_. Her heart pounds, beats loud against the inside of her head, and she can't breathe, can't see straight—how can this be possible—nobody would be cruel enough to play this as a joke—

But the words are there. The lost ship _Princess Andromeda. _Confirmed destroyed, last seen in pieces as it drifted apart in the Marin System.

A ghost voice broadcast from a ghost ship.

She has to—what? What can she do from here, stuck at CAMP, pacing the length of her room?

If she reports the message, as is expected of her, the CAMP Board will take it under investigation; after waiting for mission approval and an assigned team, which she may or may not be in charge of or even included in, and which may not even leave base for days, they'll have lost their lead. No, what she needs to do is understand this message and follow its meaning. Something about a delivery, perhaps, someone running out of time, the number 49? A destination? The spaceport? Or: travel to the Marin System, investigate the wreckage, find any kind of active unit still sending a signal. Perhaps it was a retroactive message, set up to send if the ship was destroyed? But why would someone send a copy of the message to her own private tablet if there wasn't something more going on?

Questions with no answers. Either way, she's got to get out of here. And there's no way to do that quickly if she plays by the rules.

"Okay," she says, listening to the level sound of her own voice—_something, anything to calm the desperate pounding of her heart, the tick-tock what if what if what if running fast and hard through her veins._

Because if the destruction of the Andromeda had been a lie?

Quickly she saves the message, backs it up to different servers, sends a copy to her external drive and pulls it from her desk unit. Her questions will have to wait. She pulls open her bag and tucks away the drive, her tablet, a credit chip with her stipend savings, an extra jumpsuit. She feels around the bottom of her footlocker until her fingers brush across the small pistol Director Chiron gave her when she graduated her training two years ago.

That, too, finds a home in her bag. Before she can think too much about the why and the how and all the ways she might actually have to use it, out there beyond the walls of CAMP, she stands and moves to the door.

The hall is clear.

She checks her watch. Her hand-to-hand combat block started fifteen minutes ago. Lost time in the code. It might make things more complicated, without people around to hide behind, but she can make this work. She pulls her tablet from her bag and sends a quick message to Malcolm.

_/:0.51 : Emergency. Meet me in the deck three hangar in five minutes. _

_/:0.52 : Where are you? Hu has called roll twice looking for you, thinks you're sick. You never skip._

_/:0.52 : What's going on?_

_/:0.52 : Dammit, Annabeth. This better be worth it._

The hangar is a smaller one on the station, out of the way of main thoroughfares, filled mostly with shuttles needing repair and broken down equipment. Annabeth crouches next to a generator, tapping away on her tablet, trying to send a natural-looking glitch through the security systems in the hangar. She can make a small window before someone in security comes to investigate or finds their way around the glitch—hopefully it'll be enough time to convince Malcolm to do what she needs him to do.

He arrives, like she knew he would, five minutes even and hardly out of breath. His footsteps echo in the hangar; It's dim, but light enough that Annabeth can see his glare as he approaches.

She waves him over. "Hey. We've got two minutes. I know this sounds crazy, but I need you to listen."

A pause, to see if he will interrupt. He only crouches beside her, arms crossed, watchful, while she explains the transmission, the garbled voice, her plan to go to Spaceport 49 and see if there's anything to find, then make her way to the wreckage site of the _Princess Andromeda_.

She doesn't waste time telling him why, doesn't need to tell him about the gravity of this. _Sometimes we choose our own family, he'd said right after she'd heard about the ship crash, right as she sunk to the floor, little bits of memory piecing themselves together and starting to make the most terrible kind of sense. Family, she'd said, the word breaking on a sob, echoing hundreds of times in the promise she'd been made. _

_And Malcolm's hand, heavy on her shoulder, a tether. _

_And sometimes we choose wrong._

"Come on," Malcolm says now, pulling her out of her crouch, up and forward. He takes her bag from her shoulder and tosses it into the back of a four-person shuttle, then helps her in.

An automatic smile, surprised and grateful, pulls at her lips. She settles behind the controls and engages the engine. It comes alive with a quiet purr.

Outside, she can hear Malcolm fighting with the garage control panel, muttering curses. Just a few minutes longer. By now the security camera malfunction has been reported, possibly fixed remotely.

"Use my codes," she calls toward the open door, wishing he could move faster. "Less trouble for you that way. _ , _password _01a_—"

"Please, Annabeth. Like I don't already know all of Athena's passwords. Besides," he continues, leaning his head into the empty backseat of the shuttle. "I'm already going to be in trouble for this. Director's probably going to haul me into his office as soon as you take off."

"Come with me?"

Malcolm shakes his head. There's amusement in his eyes, a tight pull around his lips that always betrays his worry. "Somebody's got to stay here and cover your ass, Chase. Go find your answers."

**.o.O.o.**

She clears launch, makes it far enough away from CAMP to be sure they haven't sent fighters out after her yet. There's no way she'll be able to outrun them. For now, the radar is blank, systems green, and in the silence of the small, one-room shuttle, she sends a quiet thanks to Malcolm.

For a few silent hours, she allows the autopilot to guide her shuttle forward, busies herself with her tablet. Numbers and letters, symbols, a pattern that lulls her into a half-doze, coordinates that bring back memories she'd rather now forget. The shuttle has enough fuel for short distances or quick ship-to-ship flights, and the reserve tank will only last so long. She'll have to head for the nearest port soon. Those closest to CAMP have docks set up for Federation ships; at Spaceport 5, she drops the shuttle off with workers who are familiar with CAMP operatives. Luckily they don't arrest her, haven't been alerted to any suspicious behavior (seriously, she is going to owe Malcolm something big). In the busy terminal, she finds a transport ship that is carrying cargo to the Thule System and hitches a ride.

It takes a full day travelling at FTL speeds. The captain and his crew both are drunkards—who else would be travelling so far out to haul cargo—and Annabeth's had to knee a fair few of them in the gut to ask them to behave.

Seeing Spaceport 49 out of the viewport is almost a relief.

When she steps off the ramp and exits the tunnel that brings her to the first sector, Annabeth isn't sure what she feels. It's small. Crowded, close, too many people stuffed together in a tin can of a hub. Entirely too many variables on every side. Where is she even supposed to begin here? It's difficult to be on high-alert for everything in a place where anybody is likely a criminal. Spaceport 49's on the ass-end of the galaxy for a reason.

But she tries to blend. She finds a clothes shop and tosses her CAMP jumpsuit, chooses wrinkled black pants to tuck into her boots; an old yellowed shirt, holed and oil-stained, that she picked up on the transport on the way over; and a patched brown jacket she bought from a vendor who looked entirely too hungry. She tucks her dog tags under her shirt, hides the Athena tattoo on her wrist under her jacket, and tries to disguise everything else about herself that screams Federation.

It works, mostly. People bump into her as they do any other person on the port. One merchant mistakes her for some kind of mercenary looking for work, and Annabeth tries to hunch her shoulders more as she walks, forces herself to stop looking around so obviously.

The thing is? She doesn't know quite what she's looking for.

Coming here was illegal and stupid. But what if this was the lead she'd been waiting for?

**.o.O.o.**

The information dig is a bust. All anybody knows about the _Princess Andromeda_ is that it went down in the Marin System years ago and that salvagers have already picked it clean.

"Vultures," one man says, hunched over his cold can of soup, his wild beard full of dry bread crumbs. "Can't leave nothin' alone. Heard it over the Net when the thing went down, saw this gang down on Sector E pick up and take off. Sure they picked it clean down to the bone. Vultures, all of them."

Annabeth hands him another roll of bread from her bag. "You don't think the Federation got there first?"

The man scoffs. "The Federation! Girl, they were the ones to blow it up, mark my words, cleaning up their own damn problems one way or another. Up to nothing good."

Others, too. A woman she runs into near a small data library: "Don't talk about such things! They've got ears everywhere, don't you know, ears in the walls and the ceilings and ears in your ears, be sure about it." A nymph, holding a sprig of her home tree in a pot against her chest: "Dangerous. Dangerous, meddling with space, with the Mist. Meant for land and air and sea, we were, not big metal monsters to walk around inside."

That night, she finds a cheap room for rent in Sector F, takes a shower, wipes the grime from her skin, washes her clothes best she can in the sink, avoids the reflection of her drawn face in the mirror. When was the last time she slept or ate? Sitting cross-legged on the bed, her tablet on her lap, she snacks on a fish taco she picked up from some vendor in the marketplace (where did the fish come from, anyway? Gods, she probably doesn't want to know, will probably spend most of tomorrow in the bathroom).

While she eats, she writes up a report for the day. Habitual, this time, instead of required. The woman, the cranky old man, the nymph. Nothing useful. Nothing that points to a why or a how, nothing that indicates anything from the _Andromeda_ survived.

Nothing that mentions Luke.

Once she finishes the taco and listens to the recording for what feels like the hundredth time—she has memorized the length of the syllables and the empty static in the pauses between that tell her absolutely nothing, that give her too much time to think about promises of family and a scar-stretched smile—she lies back and sends an encoded message to Malcolm.

_/:0.51 : Made It. No news yet. Keep you updated._

_/:0.51 : Malcolm? They throw you in the brig?_

_/:0.51 : Malcolm?_

**.o.O.o.**

She dreams of her and Luke and Thalia, the smallest incoming cohort from the CAMP school on Earth, precocious and starry-eyed and so, so young.

_We'll go out together_, Thalia had said, _our first mission_, and Luke agreed, and Annabeth made them shake on it, their hands all three piled together between them.

And she dreams of Thalia's grinning face as she waves around the acceptance letter to the Hunter program; of the bumpy edges of Luke's scar underneath her fingers, the hard press of his knuckles against her in combat class; of the maps and charts and letters, actual paper ones, he tried to keep hidden from her in his desk; of his new friends and the renewed frustration in his eyes.

And she dreams of _her _new friends, Malcolm and sometimes Clarisse, Grover and—

And she pulls herself from sleep.

No. No good reason to dream of the past.

Today, she tells herself, pulling her almost-dry clothes on. Today there will be something. Something that ties this damn recording to the _Andromeda_.

The crowds are much the same as they were, much the same as they must always be. Annabeth watches an eye-patch wearing goon bully an old woman into handing over all of her credits, gun pointed into the woman's side; a group of kids, shoeless and thin and dirty, crawl into an open duct vent; an ancient satyr being escorted roughly from a store, the shopkeep kicking his cane out from his grip. She watches, and tries to remain passive, and hates everything that makes this place what it is. Criminals and the scum of the galaxy. And too few security guards, none of them paying attention.

Why doesn't the Federation have more people out here?

_Passive, _she reminds herself. It is her job, right now, to stay focused, keep an eye out for anything unusual or threatening. There's supposed to be some kind of delivery, something big, she hopes, something she doesn't completely miss.

But there's a girl—around her own age, maybe, mid-twenties, it's hard to tell with a hat casting shadows on her dirt-grimed face—hovering around a satyr's herb cart. When the satyr turns away, sneezing, the girl brushes her fingers across the different plants and spices, lifts them with nimble fingers and slips them down the loose sleeves of her jacket. Her left hand is wrapped tight around the messenger bag on her shoulder.

Annabeth moves before she can think better of it, reaches out to snatch the girl's wrist. The girl yanks back, tries to pull away, only to have Annabeth step closer and into her space.

Pale, underneath the dirt and the splash of freckles across her face—pale, and gaunt, and bruise-purple skin hanging underneath her eyes.

"Hey," Annabeth says, letting her grip ease just so. She leans in closer. "What's your name?"

The girl mumbles.

"What?"

"Nancy," she says, slowly looking up again.

From behind them, the satyr keeps sneezing, over and over, trying to apologize to passersby in between bouts. Nancy meets Annabeth's stare through the shadow of her hat, an uneven grin stretching across her chapped lips, and Annabeth fingers twitch against the girl's wrist.

Around Nancy's pupils there is a hazy and shifting ring of purple.

Extreme Mist exposure.

"Nancy." Annabeth hates the quiver in her voice, hates the way she feels a quick jerk of fear through her heart; she does not need to be afraid of this girl, only the crazed and rapid dilation of her pupils, the clenching rainbow of colors in her eyes. Annabeth has some Mist in her—CAMP uses it intermittently and in the smallest doses to strengthen their operatives, heighten their senses, sharpen their skills—but this? This is dangerous. "Nancy, listen to me."

"No, you listen, Annabeth Chase. It's too late. You are always too late."

And Nancy takes advantage of Annabeth's surprise to finally pull away, sprinting nimbly through the crowd, disappearing around a corner. The satyr's sneezes dwindle. And before Annabeth can react, before she can follow Nancy, or wonder if this is the delivery, a Mist-riddled girl, a deep voice from somewhere down the sector shouts something about a bomb.

And then there is madness.

Screaming, and pushing, and people running into her from every direction. Annabeth pushes her way toward the source, into the crowd, against it—she sees the terror on people's faces as they pass by. She is shoving against a wall of human muscle and fear and she is not going to make it, the warning came a few stores down—

_She is not going to make it_—

The explosion shakes Annabeth to her bones. She hits the ground hard, elbows first, head slamming back into the metal walkway, landing on something sharp in her bag. Pain sings through her skull and rattles her teeth in her gums and she clings, desperately, to her consciousness. An alarm blares. People scream. A pitched whine wraps around her brain and pulls her thoughts apart.

_Stay awake_, she thinks_. Stay awake. Stay awake._

A burn on her wrist, scrapes on her left calf, a large cut on her stomach. She blinks back bursts of light to see smoke and ash and fire, squeezes her eyes shut against the pain_. _

_Stay awake. _

_Focus._

She gives herself five seconds to drag in a breath and snap herself alert. Training. She's been trained for this, has a list of protocols, things she has to do-_locate blast site, locate possible suspect, clear area of civilians, wait for backup. _

Except she doesn't have backup, and people are panicking, and she has to move. Now.

Too slowly, she pulls herself to her feet, secures her bag around her shoulder. Not breathing in the vacuum of space: good. Blast kept contained. But the smoke isn't helping. People run in every direction, trample over bodies lying prone and bleeding on the walk. Her eyes spin as she looks around, dizzy with garbled, dancing shapes and the stark red reality of the dead.

Someone bumps into her shoulder, turns to help her balance before bending toward a man lying a few feet away. Annabeth's ears feel like they're stuffed with cotton, filtering voices and amplifying the uneven beat of her heart. _Possible concussion? Stay awake. Focus._ She yanks her shirt up to cover her nose and stumbles forward. _Stay awake. Keep moving._ The blast site is nothing but debris. There's a hole in the walkway, reaching down towards the next level and up into the one above, but Annabeth can't see clearly enough to know if any part of the detonation device survived the blast.

_Check for suspect. Running out of time. Likely escaped in chaos. _

And by some chance, through her dizziness, through the crowd and the starbursts in her eyes, she focuses enough to notice the familiar silhouette of a girl several hundred feet away.

Of course.

She has her training, years of protocol, and all she can think to do is run.

**.o.O.o.**

Shoulders high and pushing through the panicked crowd, ignoring the yelling security guards, as everyone else seems to be doing. Annabeth tries to keep an eye on the vivid flare that is Nancy's carrot-orange hair. Everything's a blur, and she loses her footing more than once, but if she can just stay upright, if she can just catch up—

The girl disappears around a corner. Panic is near choking. This is her _only _lead, the only thing she's got right now. Annabeth chases after, desperation pushing against her feet, earning her a little more speed. Nancy's heading toward the docking bay, will probably take a ship and disappear. There's not time. Annabeth has to find a ship.

She has to _take _a ship.

Gods, but she hates this place.

_Okay_, she tells herself, shoving her way into the garage. There's more room to move around here, but not by much, especially when security starts guiding people in as a safe zone. It makes sense. The doors can shut and seal, locking in air, and it has its own oxygen processing unit. All in case of emergencies such as these.

There's an unmanned comm panel right next to the door. Scrolling through the list of offices, Annabeth finds the docking control operator and orders that all ships be placed under a landlock under the orders of the Federation. Hopefully they will work fast enough to stop any ship now from breaking the lock; hopefully she'll be able to find Nancy before it's necessary.

And maybe it's the Mist—maybe being so close to Nancy, coming in contact with her—did some kind of influence-transfer, but Annabeth zeroes in on the girl as she runs up the closing ramp of a freighter. A Cyclops guides her in with a huge, meaty hand, chuckles as the girl ducks away.

_Focus. _

She needs a ship.

She needs something small. Fast. Ideally a recent model—she'll need the ship's computers to track any recent deployments from the port.

Annabeth runs past a few, weaving her way through the crowd—a junked-up trash barge, no, a big cargo ship with five-year-old thrusters, no_, _shuttle carrier, _no, _a small, modified corvette model… she slows as she nears the doors to docking bay D2, suspicion and disbelief pushing past her exhaustion. She knows this ship—its low curving lines, the shape of the wings, the swell of the roof over the bridge. She knows it even as it's been repainted a bland gray, even as the name has been covered up with a new one: _Riptide._

_Anaklusmos._

And if this is here, then inside…

If she's going to do this, there cannot be any hesitation. The ship itself is fast enough. It's got FTL capabilities, strong shields, powerful guns.

What she is worried about is its captain.

She swallows the smoke-sore knot in her throat, pushes past her pride, and jogs into the docking bay. Her steps are heavy as she staggers up the ramp—distantly she wonders how much blood she's lost, and if she's punctured something serious in her stomach—and a smaller kid with wild black is hurriedly stacking crates into the ship's cargo bay. He looks up when Annabeth approaches. "Hey! What are you doing? You can't just—"

She pulls her gun from her bag, points it at his chest. "I'm a Federation operative and I need to speak to your captain."

His face pales. Slowly he raises his hands. "Look, why don't we—"

_No time_. With her free hand, she reaches back and punches the kid right across the jaw, sends him falling back against the crates. With him distracted with his moaning, Annabeth tucks her pistol into her belt and finds the stairs, takes them two at a time, stumbles onto the metal grating of the high crosswalk. Annabeth is in the hallway, nearing the common room—_so familiar, she remembers everything about this place, the order of the rooms and the smell and the way the air tastes in her mouth_—when she hears a voice on the shipwide intercom.

"Boss! There's some crazy woman on board, says she's a Fed, totally _loca, _man, she punched me in the face! She's coming up to you, I think. She had a gun—"

She is halfway down the hall to the cockpit when he steps out.

Percy.

Annabeth's heart falters. He is dressed like her, like the people of the port—dirty brown pants tucked into dirty black boots, a faded cotton button-down rolled up to his elbows, a pistol holstered at his hip. He watches her, silent, eyes narrowed. She doesn't remember him being so tall.

And the first time she heard his name, so many years ago—_the boy's name is Percy Jackson and they say he's beaten the MINOTAUR, only the most challenging CAMP aptitude test created._

_Annabeth doesn't believe it. Nobody's beaten the MINOTAUR for decades._

_Director Chiron gestures for her to have a seat, and she perches on the edge of the chair, back straight, hands clenched in her lap. There's a tight ball of anger in her chest that she's held for far too long now, a knot that flares with heat when the Director fusses with the tablet on his desk and clears his throat into the silent room. It's not pride that tells her she's the smartest student at CAMP. Her test scores have set records. But if Director Chiron is here to tell her that this Percy Jackson has taken her place—_

_Just say it, she thinks, smoothing her face into a mask of calm. Just say it, already._

_"We've received a new student. I'm sure you've heard." Director Chiron moves the tablets around on his desk. The screens, glowing a soft, clear blue, are almost calming. "And while he's passed our aptitude tests, he is entirely behind on academics. I need you to be his tutor. Get him up to speed."_

_Tutor. Annabeth blinks. Her fists unfurl. "Sir?"_

_"The Board has decided to place him in Poseidon, and as you know, he will be alone there. They're allowing for his immersion in classes with other divisions to get him accustomed to life at CAMP."_

_"They're fast-tracking him," Annabeth says. _

_Director Chiron doesn't respond. He doesn't shake his head, doesn't say anything, doesn't fiddle with his tablets. _

_Definitely fast-tracking, then._

_And if the Board is trying to push a brand new kid like Percy Jackson through CAMP as quickly as possible, making allowances for his admittance that they wouldn't have otherwise, there must be something going on. She studies Director Chiron—the lines around his dark eyes, the gray dusting of his hair, the rumpled lines of his uniform. _

_He's tired. He's tired, and he's asking for help._

_Annabeth sighs. "When do I start?" _

_Director Chiron allows himself a small smile and leans forward to hand Annabeth the topmost tablet. "Today. 0300. He's getting settled in his bunk. Grover Underwood gave him the tour earlier, but he won't be expecting you. Don't be too hard on him his first day."_

_She stands, gives a quick salute. At the door, because she can't stop herself, and because if they're pretending these aren't orders disguised as some kind of favor she's doing him, she has just enough room to be insolent. "If you wanted someone to coddle him, Director, you wouldn't have assigned him to me."_

And here he is, settled into his ship, its walls protective around him. They stand, just a few feet of empty space between them, a few lightyears of misunderstandings and secrets and lies, and she doesn't know what to do with the hard refusal in his eyes, the empty hollow in his voice as he says, "Annabeth."

So she takes a breath and goes with the truth. "I need your ship."


	3. Three

An explosion on the Spaceport, a sharp pitch in his ears, and not enough leverage to get himself up off the ground and _run, run like hell, get out of here while you can. _

Too slowly, Percy drags himself up off Leo, helps Grover up. The satyr's eyes are unfocused and shaking, his steps unsure; Percy doesn't have enough time to ask him if he's alright. He shoves his way through the mass of people and the almost physical wall of panic and screams and makes it into his docking bay with Leo and Grover following close behind. A few of their ordered food crates have been delivered and sit in the middle of the room. It's not everything he's paid for, but it's enough to keep them from going hungry. Better than nothing.

Better than having his head blown off. Certainly better than sucking in space.

"Piper," he shouts, running up _Riptide_'s waiting bay ramp, sliding a box into a corner and turning to help Leo with the other. He hopes to high heaven that she actually stayed on the ship like she said she would. Grover slumps in and Percy spares a second to make sure he gets himself seated somewhere before he passes out.

Mist. It's got to be Mist, draining him like this. He hadn't been close enough to the blast for it to have affected him so badly. Maybe the bomb had been laced with it?

"Piper!" he shouts. Grover will be fine. "We need to get moving. Now. Start undocking."

He can hear her flipping switches over the com even as she asks, "What? What's going on? There's static everywhere and I've been getting weird chatter on the local stations. Did you blow something up again? Are you guys alright?"

"Funny. Not me this time_._" Percy turns to Leo, who is brushing ash from his hair. "You get everything you need?"

"Honest? No."

"Well. Shit."

"Need you up here, Captain," Piper says, panic threading through her voice. The sound jerks his heart into gear. "Something's overriding our controls."

_Shit. _And he got up this morning and thought this would be a routine run. Should've known, right?

He motions for Leo to bring in the remaining boxes and jogs up the stairs. In the cockpit, Piper's braced over the panel, arms locked, unmoving. The lines of her shoulders are rigid. "I can't figure it out. It looks like a basic lock but I can't hack through it and Festus isn't doing us any favors. Docking control says it's a Fed override, but it doesn't look—it shouldn't _look _like this."

He puts his hand on her back. Maybe if he can calm her panic, he can hold down some of his own. Quickly he glances down to where Piper's ripped off the loose side panel of her controls, sees the hodge-podge mess of wires around the little green box that houses their admittedly shit virtual intelligence guide, Festus. It's supposed to function as a co-pilot—mine the Net for information, process codes, provide translations and communications incoming and outgoing and throughout the ship. Leo rigged it up for them, but it speaks to Piper's brilliance, or Leo's attachment issues, that she functions just fine without it.

Percy swipes at the cluster of wires. "Nothing from him at all?"

"Nothing. Just jibberish. Told Leo to scrap it but you know he doesn't listen."

"Other ships still docked?"

"Every ship on the port." She glances at him before turning back to the screen and trying the lock again. Codes, lines of code that make no sense to him at all. Piper keeps trying. "You think someone else is overriding the override?"

Percy nods. There isn't much he understands about the past, what, fifteen minutes? Doesn't understand who'd want to waste time threatening a spaceport so far away from the Sol System, doesn't understand why there's a cold frenzy squeezing his lungs tight—but he does know that the Federation doesn't take caution with threats, and wherever danger crops up, CAMP follows soon after.

They have to get out of here. Percy's supposed to be dead, his ship—the ship he kind of stole, accidentally, or at least parts of it—is supposed to be gone on the edges of the galaxy; it won't do any good for them to be seen here.

And then Leo, on the com: "Boss! There's some crazy woman on board, says she's a Fed—"

The rest of Leo's explanation is lost as Percy turns from the console, as the blood rushes loud in his ears.

_Steady, _he thinks, _steady and calm, a still hand brings still aim, still thoughts. _He brings his hand to his pistol as he meets the Fed in the mouth of the cockpit, and the cold around his heart nearly freezes him still when he realizes that he recognizes her.

_He has vomited up his breakfast, and his lunch, and all the water he's managed to drink, finally resulting to dry heaving into his trash chute. He went through a zero-g and space grav course before being shipped off the planet, but it hadn't prepared him for the reality of being suspended hundreds of miles above Earth._

_It's dizzying. He's glad he doesn't have a window._

_He lies down, hoping it will dull the majority of his nausea. The bunk is stiff and everything is gray and the air that blows in through the vents is cool and stale. He misses his mother, who has always been his home, and the apartments she would always make comfortable, the walls she would paint bright colors, the candles she would light, all the food she'd cook. When she wrapped her arms around him at the shipyard, the smell of warm cookies clung to her hair and her clothes, followed him even after they'd said goodbye._

_Will there ever be a time he doesn't think of her?_

_Thankfully he falls asleep somewhere between kicking his boots off and his fifth attempt at counting to a hundred. It's a short-lived rest. The alert on his door chimes, and the sound of it sliding open, and someone stepping into the room, pulls him from sleep._

_He sits up and is surprised to see a girl._

_She is tall, and tan, and frowning. Her blonde hair is pulled tight into a bun at the back of her head. Percy stands, because he's pretty sure he remembers some rule about two students not being alone in the same room, and he doesn't want to mess up on his first day at CAMP, but the girl doesn't seem to care. She stares at him with eyes that are as gray and hard as the moon._

_"You beat the MINOTAUR," she says, her voice thick with disbelief._

_Percy feels himself tense. That stupid test. Grover said that it was a big deal, that it's some kind of impossible challenge of character that you can't study for. The people at the planetside CAMP office ran him through the simulations before admitting him to the program, but Percy didn't find it impossible. Difficult, maybe. Different._

_He doesn't know what to say, so he shrugs. _

_The girl shakes her head. She transfers the tablet she'd been holding across her chest and holds out a hand. "I'm Annabeth Chase, Athena. Director Chiron has assigned me to be your tutor."_

_Percy blinks. Tutor. Well, it's not like he doesn't need one. _

_"Percy Jackson," he says, taking her hand. Her grip is firm and sure and she lets go quickly, turning to his desk and pulling out his chair. He sees, now, as she sits, the owl patch on the shoulder of her jumpsuit. He's got a blue trident on his. Poseidon. "Does everybody introduce themselves by their division name?"_

_"To new students and teachers, yes," she says, attention on her tablet. Her fingers move quickly along its surface. The words move and disappear too fast for Percy to catch. "Once we get to know one another, it's unnecessary, really."_

_Percy decides it's safe to sit on the edge of his bunk. "Grover said Athena's where they stick all the smart kids."_

_Annabeth Chase, Athena, looks at him with indifference. "If you want to be simple about it, then yes, I guess he's right. Here." She hands him the tablet. The interface is similar to the MINOTAUR program he used but more basic, probably modded, possibly stolen. "Show me."_

_"What?"_

_"Show me what you did." She points to the tablet. There's a tension in her shoulders, a downward curve to her lips that tells Percy she's determined and maybe a little desperate. _

_So he angles his body and holds the tablet down so that she can lean over and watch. The test is only different than the one he took for the CAMP administrators by a few trials, and those he goes through just as he would've for them. Annabeth is silent the entire time. She is sitting close enough that he can smell her. Regulation shampoo, still air, a little like metal and plastic and things he doesn't yet know how to identify. _

_His heart aches for Earth._

_When he's done, he holds the tablet for her to take. The words _completed_ and _passed _and _accepted_ pause in the middle of the screen, and Percy wishes they'd disappear because the way Annabeth's face flushes makes him feel like he's done something horrible. He waits for her to say something. When she doesn't, Percy is about to just sit the stupid thing in Annabeth's lap when she reaches out, hand steady, and takes it. _

_"Okay," she says, closing the screen. She stands up. "Your schedule says you have a free period after third hour. Meet me in the dining hall and we'll go over what you've learned. Also?"_

_She pauses in the doorway. Percy doesn't want to know. He probably doesn't want to know, but he looks up anyway, because she is cold and beautiful and probably dangerous and the smirk on her face scares the hell out of him._

_"You drool when you sleep. See you later, Jackson."_

Only now, seeing her _now_—her mouth open in surprise, golden hair flecked with dust and ash and falling loose from its ponytail, cuts and scrapes crosshatched across her forehead, Fed dog tags resting against her dirty and torn and blood-soaked shirt—now everything is different. He left his past behind when CAMP dismissed him, took with him only his memories and the people who wanted to stick around.

She chose to stay behind.

Damned if his gut doesn't clench, anyway, because here she is, clearly trying to reign in her own shock, clearly in pain, hopefully not trying to seize his ship for the reasons he believes, and though his thoughts are a warring, jumbled mess, he tries for neutral: "Annabeth."

She draws in a shaking breath. "I need your ship."

"No."

Her smile is as thin and sharp as a blade, her unsettling eyes the color of an angry gray quiet before a surface storm. She limps forward, hand reaching out to rest on the wall for support. "I am commandeering your ship by Federation regulation 223A for pursuit of suspect—"

"This is not a Federation ship, and I am no longer part of CAMP," Percy interrupts, unholstering his pistol. A horrible urge to laugh bubbles up to his throat—_she's bleeding and favoring her side and she can't even walk and she thinks she can commandeer us_—but he swallows it down, points the pistol to the ground at her feet.

She stills.

Her gaze flickers to his hand before returning to his face.

"You know the law," she says slowly. "You are in Federation space. And I know you have criminals on this ship. The last thing they need on their records is a Federation infraction of impeding the process of a priority alpha investigation. And the suspect ship is _getting away_."

Percy's finger hovers above the trigger.

He can't shoot her.

He can't let her take _Riptide_.

But he can't let her ruin his crew's lives, either, and he can feel Piper's stare burning into his back from her seat in the cockpit. It doesn't matter quite so much how Annabeth knows about them—CAMP probably keeps track of all its outcasts—only that she does.

In the silence of the hall, under Percy's indecision and the threat of a gun, Annabeth loses some of her bravado. Her shoulders sink. She leans heavily on one leg.

"I need your help, Percy," she says, a quiet desperation that crawls right under his skin. He smells the smoke clinging to her. He looks at her—sees, now, the slight haze in her eyes, the unsteady rise of her chest, her shaking hands. She can talk about regulations and the rigid rules of the law and underhanded persuasion all she wants, but it is when she steps closer that he realizes she is looking for his permission.

Wasn't she his crew, once, too? Several months and stars and lightyears ago?

Damn it.

_Damn it. _

He holsters his gun and turns away from Annabeth. "Piper, you break that lock yet?"

"No, Captain," the pilot says, shaking the enthralled look from her face. "Can't get past it."

He hears Annabeth's rattling exhale behind him, right before she rushes past him as quickly as she can on a bad leg. "You won't," she says, leaning over Piper's console, now nothing but quick, controlled movements, a singular focus.

The whole thing is so surreal that he just shrugs at Piper's bewildered glance.

Annabeth enters a string of commands and clears her throat, winces. "Spaceport 49 Docking Control. This is CAMP Operative Annabeth Chase of Athena. I need you to clear this ship immediately for pursuit of suspect."

"Affirmative, Operative Chase. Ship number?"

Annabeth looks to Piper, who turns to Percy. "Captain?"

He could refuse. He could break the law by forcibly removing her from his ship and become a renegade on the edges of Federation space, always on the run, which isn't so different than now. And after Annabeth finds a way to deal with whatever it is she's investigating out here, she'd certainly come back to find him. And she wouldn't stop until she did.

Or he could help her.

He stares at Annabeth, weary and tired. He probably owes her this, in some way, for some long list of favors she's done him when they used to know one another. For some reason, she needs his help. What other options does she have?

"Operative Chase? We need your ship number to begin the undocking process."

Percy sighs. He nods at Piper.

She answers: "2625-12A _Riptide, _registered _Anaklusmos._"

"Docking release cleared. Safe travels."

Piper shifts her chair back to her controls as, outside, the bay doors open; she pulls the ship out of dock and into the empty, vast ocean of space that stretches wide before them. _Riptide _hums underneath his feet, shoots quick toward the stars. He feels a weight lift from his shoulders.

Percy crosses his arms and leans against the doorway as Annabeth sags against the side of the controls.

"Where to, Captain?" Piper asks, eyeing Annabeth's dirty hands on her panel, and it almost makes him smile.

For this, Percy looks to Annabeth. "Your orders, Operative?"

She doesn't look pleased at his tone, which was the point, and the steel in her stare brings him some guilty, squirming pleasure. "I've programmed a tracking coordinate," she says. "We're following a ship that's suspected to be involved in the bombing."

"Suspected," Percy says.

"Yes."

"So we could be chasing a distraction."

Annabeth pauses, pressing her lips together, before answering. "Yes."

"What do you think, Piper?"

Piper looks like she'd rather not get involved, but she glances at the screens on her console. The ever-shifting coordinates glow bright in the corner of one screen. With deft hands, Piper scrolls through the screens, traces jumps and routes, plots a trajectory to Annabeth's coordinates. The circle that indicates the suspect's ship escapes them off-screen. Piper glances up. "I don't think we're going to catch them."

Annabeth bites at her fingernail. "Run it again."

Piper runs the simulation again, glancing over her shoulder to roll her eyes at Percy. _Who is she?_ she mouths.

He shakes his head. _Later._

With a groan, Annabeth pushes away from the controls, paces toward the far wall, comes back. Her steps leave behind dark tracks. "We might be able to predict a destination if we can get close enough," she says. "Plot their FTL jumps, estimate when they might have to stop for fuel and where. A ship that size, though, would have a big enough reserve…"

Carefully, Percy steps forward, close enough to reach out and touch her, if he were stupid enough to do so. He remembers the way he'd still her shaking hands right before combat sims, remembers her easy, grateful smiles, remembers the way he could predict her nerves and worries. Her face now is a mask he doesn't know how to read.

"Why is this so important?" he asks, because it doesn't make sense. She's on her own—no team, no backup, on a run-down spaceport at the ass end of the galaxy—everything that goes against CAMP training. "You could just call it in."

She doesn't move, doesn't seem to breathe, until Piper pushes down the thruster and buys them a little more speed.

"I think it's Luke, Percy," Annabeth says finally. "I think this is a lead to finding Luke."

Something in Percy's chest blossoms open, hot and writhing and sharp. There aren't words. He doesn't know how to look away from her, either, away from the almost cowed shadow in her eyes and the dark hollows beneath.

Luke.

Not chasing distractions, then. Chasing ghosts.

**.o.O.o.**

They fall into silence under the heavy weight of Luke's name. _Promises and lies and the slippery bastard got away and left Percy with the fallout, and now here they are, he and Annabeth, strangers, and what is he supposed to do with this needling, awkward quiet thick between them?_

He watches the stars for a while. The drive-blurred view of space through the windows is near hypnotizing, and he pretends that the still-buzzing echo against his ears is the hum of stars passing by. When that gets old, he then watches Piper glance back and forth between he and Annabeth as if trying to puzzle them out.

And then there's movement, and Annabeth slips—

Piper is just quick enough. The girl, though smaller, wiry, is surprisingly strong (she's punched him enough for him to feel a phantom ache of her fist against his shoulder) and holds her arm around Annabeth's waist until she finds her feet. "You alright?"

"I got knocked around on the port," Annabeth admits. "I'm fine."

"Bullshit," Percy says.

She turns—Piper turning with her—to glare at Percy. "I'm _fine_."

"You can hardly stand. You think I don't know what getting hit by a bomb feels like?" Percy rolls his eyes. Years may have passed since he knew the pieces of her expressions, and she may be a difficult kind of readable now, but this is something he knows. "Piper, you think you could help Operative Chase to a room?"

Annabeth's shoulders stiffen. She pulls away from the steadying weight of Piper's arm. "As soon as I step around the corner, you're going to change path and find a place to drop me," she says, her pause inviting Percy's denial. He doesn't say anything. "I'm _fine. _I can see this through."

"You don't have to see anything through." He measures her with a stare. "If this is what you need to do, we'll do it. We've been _commandeered_, remember—"

She throws an arm up. "And that doesn't mean I'll also be disregarded as soon as—"

"—so we'll do as you tell us and keep path—"

"—I turn my back, I know you, and I know you'd—"

"—and God, Annabeth, I'm trying to help you, would you just _stop_?"

She does. She stops talking, stops moving, stops fighting him.

"We're already tracking the ship. I'll… if you say it's Luke, maybe I can help you find him," Percy says. "In the meantime, you look like you haven't slept in days. Piper can show you to a room."

After a stretch of silence, Annabeth nods, lips pulled into a thin line. She steps past them. "I can find it," she says when Piper reaches out to steady her.

Percy lets her go.

When the sound of her uneven footsteps disappear, Piper turns to Percy and brings her hands up, all fingers splayed. "What the _hell._"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You promised. You said _later _and it is _later _and who the hell is that? Is that—that's that girl! The Athena girl, with the eyes, your old partner!"

She grins at him like this is supposed to be an exciting insight, like the stories he's told late at night, under the influence of way too many glasses of some Satyr-world liquor weren't tinged and warped and wrong. He sinks into the co-pilot's chair and rubs at his temples. A shower would be nice. A shower, and a warm plate of food, and a long, empty sleep.

"Hey, you don't really have to tell me. It's got to be complicated," Piper says, reaching over to rest her hand on his shoulder. "But, you know. I'm here. And I'll find out sooner or later."

Percy crosses his arm over his chest to hold her hand. "Yeah. Thanks."


	4. Four

It takes Annabeth far too long to limp down the stairs. She makes it to the second deck, curses her ankle every step through the mess hall, and makes it to the hall lined with dorms. The _Riptide _was built for a small crew of twenty, with five officers' quarters and two larger rooms lined with bunks. The first four doors, she assumes, are occupied by the current crew, so she tries the last single room. The door slides open soundlessly.

Inside waits a bed and a desk and a footlocker enclosed by four gray walls. It's tiny compared to the space she once had on the _Birmingham_, but at least she doesn't have to bunk with anyone like she does at CAMP, and it's hers, for now.

It's more than she could have expected.

So she drops her bag on the desk and looks longingly at the bed. If she lies down now, she knows that she won't be getting up for a while, and the aching pull of her muscles demands her attention first. Carefully she tugs her jacket off, pulls her shirt up over her head, adjusts the straps of her tight black bra.

Her torso's a mess. A large gash cuts across her stomach and oozes blood every time she turns even slightly. Burns ghost across her hands. Tiny scrapes dash across her skin, up along her waist and skimming across her collarbones. The end of her ponytail is singed off. She smells like soot and smoke and still hears the screams of people in the marketplace, and she can't get it out of her head, any of it—the dizzying, confused chaos, the insistent push of Mist in her head. The explosion. The bodies. Nancy.

Her own suffocating fear.

But she tells herself to breathe. Prioritize. She's going to find Nancy, that Cyclops, that ship. And then she's going to follow them to Luke.

First, though—

With a shaking hand, she balls up her shirt and presses it against her slowly clotting wound. Pain rips across her stomach. She bites down hard on the knuckles of her free hand.

There's a knock at the door.

_Breathe. Breathe._

She pulls her hand back. A crescent of teeth marks line her fingers. "Come in."

She doesn't know who she expects to be on the other side, but seeing Grover as the door opens, his hands restless at the edges of the bag he carries, eyes wide as he takes her in, is a surprise. It's been so long, and the reality of his presence, _protectorguidefriend,_ is an unbelievable relief.

He looks exhausted, drained, but so much the same.

"Grover," she says on an exhale.

"Hey," he says. "You, uh. You mind if I come in?"

She shakes her head, doesn't trust her voice around the thick, burning knot in her throat.

"I brought some supplies for you," he says, walking carefully around her to place the bag on the desk. A med kit, she realizes belatedly as he pulls it open: small bottles and tubes, ointments and pills and serums, a small roll of antibiotic tape. He pulls out a tube, as well as the tape, and turns toward her.

Annabeth steps back.

She can only guess how much these supplies must have cost them. Judging by the state of the ship, and their dock at Port 49, they can't be all that prepared to restock med supplies any time soon. She doesn't want to waste them.

Grover, of course, seems to understand immediately. He sits on the edge of the bed and grabs for her arm, turns her gently towards him so that she stands before him. He winces as he looks at the dusty balled-up shirt she holds against herself. She peels it away to show him.

He hisses through his teeth. "Shrapnel?"

"Probably. This is the worst of it."

His grip on her arm tightens slightly. "What about your leg?"

"Right." Annabeth tosses the shirt on the bed with a little too much force. "You talked to Percy."

"Of course I talked to him," Grover says, the _you idiot _implicit in his voice, his following pause even louder. _Why didn't you?_

With patience for her silence, with steady hands, he dabs a bit of the ointment onto his finger and spreads it over the wound. First in the middle where it cuts the deepest, where the ointment burns cold and turns her blood to ice. They watch as it clots. Slowly the skin bubbles, knits through itself, pulls delicate over the cut.

_That'll scar_, she thinks, feeling herself sway. The room tips to the side. Her head is full of lights. _Scars like Luke's, drawn down his face, and scars like the ones Percy keeps hidden inside himself, and now I have some to match. _

Grover's face blurs. "Hey, you alright?"

Annabeth puts her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. Nausea bubbles in her stomach. She wonders exactly how many years it's been since she's seen him, if he's felt her absence as acutely as she's felt his.

She wants to ask. Doesn't know how.

The quiet is maddening.

Head ducked, his horns peeking through the curls of his hair, he focuses only on pushing more of the gradually-reddening glob of ointment on his finger, the angry red stretch of skin on her abdomen.

"You used to be my keeper, too," she says, pushing the words past the raw, aching parts of her throat, her heart. "I needed you."

Grover pauses, her blood on his hands. He wipes them off on the ruined t-shirt as best he can and tries to pick the edge of the antibiotic tape free with shaking fingers.

"Grover."

"Percy needed me." The words burst from him, as if he's been keeping them close only too long. "He needed me after _you_ left us."

Annabeth takes her hands from his shoulders. They hover, along with his words, in the space between them.

Because what else can she say to the truth?

Eyes wide, he gets to his feet. "I don't—I shouldn't have said that—"

The door opens.

"Operative Chase?" Piper, her arms full of stuff, hesitates a step into the room. "Oh, gods, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt, I'll come back later—"

Grover does not respond, so Annabeth says, "No, it's fine. Come in."

Almost cautiously, the pilot walks in, passes a curious glance to Grover as he gathers up his med kit and makes a hasty exit. The silence he leaves behind is thick and draining, and Annabeth eases herself onto the bed, careful not to tear the new skin on her stomach.

"I, um, brought you some things," Piper says, unstacking and organizing and clearly trying to find a safe route of conversation. Soap and shampoo, a comb, a few hair ties and pins, a clean set of clothes. She unfolds a pair of worn cargo pants and holds them up to herself. "They might be a little small for you, but I thought you might want something clean to wear."

"Thanks."

Annabeth watches as Piper folds the pants and sits them next to everything else. It's clear Piper has questions—about her and Percy, or Grover, or the bombing. Perhaps it is an order that keeps her silent, but Annabeth remembers coming across the girl's closed CAMP file, has it saved somewhere on her tablet: _McLean is unfocused, insecure, erratic. Does not consistently obey command. Will protect those to whom she is loyal first, over CAMP's mission. Possible flight risk if taken into consideration. _

"Well," Piper says eventually, walking backwards to the door. "Showers are down the hall. Mess just got restocked if you get hungry."

The last Annabeth sees of her before the door slides shut are her eyes, strangely multicolored, browns and blues and greens, shifting and sharp as they are gentle.

With a sigh, Annabeth eases herself back until she is lying down. Her eyelids droop shut. A weird series of clicks and whirs chime somewhere near the door panel before the lights dim and lull her into sleep.

**.o.O.o.**

_The bright lights of the mess hall during free hour. Voices, overlapping, loud across the room. Her table crowded with friends, covered with food trays and tablets, elbows resting on the edges, hands reaching for drinks. _

_Annabeth, a queen at her court._

_Grover and Percy at her left, playing some card game they'd rigged up on their tablets. Luke and Thalia to her right, cracking jokes about their tactical instructor, his skeletal face, twitchy moustache, grave voice. _

_It is the first stage of the before. Together yet divided, cracks in the veneer, distance growing fast between them despite the space. A vacuum. Annabeth hears, acutely, the empty spaces, the loud roar of voices surrounding them; Percy's and Luke's laughter, discordant._

_"You want a turn, Annabeth?" Percy asks, passing over the tablet. The familiar shape of the MINOTAUR test slides onto the screen. Percy smiles. "Don't worry. I'll go with you."_

_"That test doesn't mean anything," Luke says. "You see what they're doing? Trying to figure out our aptitude, testing our resolve, throwing us at galactic crises so that they can remain a faceless oppressive force and use us as mindless footsoldiers."_

_Thalia frowns. "Luke. We save lives. We are meant for the stars."_

_"We're pawns." _

_And when Percy leans across the table, the sound in the hall cuts out quick, sudden. Annabeth doesn't want him to speak but she cannot move from her chair, cannot open her mouth or blink or breathe, is held suspended. _

_Her heart thunders loud in the silence. _

_"Then why are you here?" Percy asks._

_Luke's eyes spark gold. The ridges of the scar that cuts across his mouth stretch wide as he smiles. "I have big plans for you, Jackson."_

_And then Malcolm, who appears between them, his eyes swirled with purple, pupils expanding and shrinking—Malcolm, whose face is not his, features blank and undefined. "You must make a choice, Annabeth."_

_You must make a choice, Annabeth._

_Make a choice make a choice make a choice._

_A shift. The slow blur of time._

_A choice._

_A boy with blonde hair who pulls her from an alleyway on Earth. A girl with a black jacket who teaches her how to fight._

_The gravity that tugs hard at her feet, the air that rests heavy in her lungs, the knowledge that she is alone, always alone. She does not remember what her father's gardens look like, cannot remember her mother's face, but this—sleeping on the cool pavement, begging shopkeepers for food, trying to stay out of the way just enough to survive—this is her life. _

_And there's another boy, dark-haired, round-cheeked, who cries for his home at night; a boy who beat the hardest test she's been given, who doesn't even know how._

_You must make a choice, Annabeth._

_Soon. Again. _

_Fix it._

_Nancy's red hair, ducked shoulders, the surprising tension in her arm. Purple whirlwind eyes, shifting and ethereal, gaping wide as space, flecked with swirling stardust and madness and Mist._

_A Cyclops guiding her inside a ship. The high, dark halls. The strange thrum of the engine. They walk to the bridge and stand before the central circular command unit._

_A holographic interface appears. The words are a strange, unrecognizable language. Nancy types in a message. The grid of lights inches upwards, slowly, building feet and ankles and shins, knees, thighs. Standard black boots and pants, a familiar silver-snake belt buckle._

_Awareness slams through Annabeth's body. The second she realizes she's dreaming, she seems to shimmer into existence, almost corporeal, somehow still transient yet solid at once. When she gasps, Nancy and the Cyclops whirl to face her. Behind them, the hologram builds a chest, broad shoulders. _

_Something in the back of her head tugs at her._

_"No. No!" _

_She has to see—needs to know—_

**.o.O.o.**

"No!"

Annabeth jerks awake. Back in her body. Her room on the _Riptide_. Piper's clean clothes on the desk. A click-whir that brings the lights on.

She rests her hand against her sprinting heart. She'd been there. Somehow she'd been _right there_, on the bridge of Nancy's ship, waiting as they'd hailed some hologram. She'd recognized Luke's belt buckle, a caduceus, the ancient symbol for health and medicine, the CAMP division to which he'd been assigned.

He'd been right there. Except she has no proof, nothing but a desperate Mist dream conjured by the magic of space dust, and no useful information.

For a while, she tries to go back to sleep, to chase her vision back to that ship, but her mind's running too fast for her to relax. There's a small clock near the door panel that shows the time. She must've gotten about five hours of sleep. It's not enough—her muscles and joints protest every movement, but she can't stay still, has to move.

So she gets out of bed and collects the soap and clean clothes off the desk.

The ship is quiet as she steps into the hall. Dulled voices filter in from upstairs and some muffled music to her left, where the hall opens into the cargo bay, and, within the belly of the ship, the engine room. The large bathroom lies between the officers' quarters and the two crew dormitories. It's pretty spacious: separate stalls for toilets and showers, a little shelf just inside each stall to keep things dry.

Annabeth eases herself out of her tight bra, leans against the wall to kick off her boots and pants. She presses a few buttons on the control panel for hot water, but all that comes out is cold. She takes a deep breath, grits her teeth, and ducks under the spray.

Washing away the dirt and blood and dust takes time. The water reveals the many scratches and bruises decorating her body, the still sensitive skin at her stomach, the twisted, swollen mess around her ankle. Five-minute showers have been her normal, but she relaxes, despite the cold, and stays under until the water runs clear at her feet and she feels ready to towel dry.

Piper's pants are a little tight, but she squeezes in and manages to button them, pulls on the gray shirt, slips her dogtags underneath. She takes care to braid her hair back and stuffs her dirty clothes into the laundry chute. Her jacket goes last. It's an old thing, not even hers, but she takes a quick moment to mourn the tears in the rare leather.

Now that she feels better, she doesn't know what to do with herself.

She'd like to steer clear of both Percy and Grover, trusts that they will stick to their word and keep course; trusts that they have just enough motive to track down Luke.

So she follows the music. Through the empty cargo bay, down the stairs. There's a door propped open between two storage closets, through which the wide engine room opens up, echoing with some low, fast-paced dance song.

The spherical drive core rests tall in the middle of the room, glowing a soft blue, pulsing with a fine layer of Mist.

The Bolt prototype.

_Wonder if it was worth it, _Annabeth thinks, stepping closer, unable to take her eyes from it. She feels—she feels amazing, wants to reach into it and—

"Hey! What are you doing in here?"

The kid she punched when she boarded wiggles out from underneath a panel, a bruise already blossoming against his cheekbone. He pushes his goggles up into his hair and crosses his legs as he sits and looks up at Annabeth. His pants are cut off at the knees, his socks uneven, his boots worn and unlaced. The pockets of his vest are overflowing with small tools and springs and circuit boards. Half of his hair seems to stand on end while the other is pressed to his head. His fingers tap a quick beat against his leg in time to his music even as he glares.

Leo Valdez: engineering prodigy.

"Well?"

Annabeth nods towards the drive core. "Did you get this running?"

"Yeah." He looks torn between suspicion and pride, but he's no longer yelling at her. "A lot of it from scrap. It was a bitch to get that much contained Mist for startup, but look at her now."

An engine pieced together from junk and sophisticated technology, only half-finished when it was taken from the CAMP garage, technicians and blueprints and all. She's amazed that they even made it out of orbit, amazed that they were able to finish such a complicated, untested design without any equipment, without any funds to speak of.

But maybe that's why CAMP wanted Leo to begin with.

"Doesn't it affect you?"

"Well, yeah. We haven't found a way to dampen the exhaust. The blueprints weren't complete."

"You still have them?"

He twists the wrench between his fingers, looks up at the shimmering core, the beautiful, dangerous incompleteness of it. _Madness comes in many forms, _she thinks, remembering Nancy's eyes; looking now at Leo, sitting on the floor; feeling it in herself, right at the edges of her mind.

"What, you here to take it away? Haul us back, throw us in a brig, impound the ship?" Annabeth opens her mouth, but Leo barrels right through, waving the wrench around. "Listen up, Operative Chase: you can march your ass right into an airlock. I build this baby with my own two hands, and hell if I'm letting you take it away."

"I'm not planning on taking it," she says, crossing her arms, stepping as close to the core as she dares. If she focuses, she can see the fragile metal underneath, stretched thin. "I was in the top of my class, you know. Worked alongside Director Chiron, attended some of his meetings, saw his notes. I studied the earliest prototype of this engine while it was still theoretical. I could help you get it running."

"You top of your class in punching innocent civilians in the face, too?"

Annabeth can't help but snort. "Innocent."

Leo glares. "We were in the clear before you showed up. Out here minding our own business, staying off the radar. A reminder, in case that bomb knocked something loose in your head: Captain's supposed to be dead, _Riptide _lost somewhere in the black. And now you've got us on some whack Fed-sponsored field trip!"

"I haven't called it in. I wasn't even cleared to leave CAMP."

"Like they can't track you," he holds up his wrist and then points to her own, to the Athena tattoo just visible underneath her sleeve. She runs her thumb across the iridescent ink, dark at one angle and near invisible at the next, and the smallest bump in the middle where her information chip rests underneath the skin.

She shakes her head. "I tied it to my tablet, turned off anything transmitting a signal. They can't find me, not out here."

"Except," Leo says, drawing out the word. "The cameras that caught your face on the sector, and you using your Op status to force a landlock on the _entire port_, and the scar on the back of Percy's neck."

Annabeth stills. _Wounds and blood and the marks left behind, and Percy, whose voice sounded different than she remembered, who didn't look quite the same. Percy, chose to help her anyway._

"What scar?"

Leo sighs. He spins his wrench on his palm and leans back against his panel. "They don't just chip you once, that'd be inefficient. All their operatives would find a way to deactivate it whenever they wanted to go dark. Like you. And what happens when someone kidnaps you, digs the chip out themselves? They have to find you somehow. When they decided to kick Percy out, they told him they'd deactivate the chip, but I found an active one in his neck and another in his ankle. We cut them out, made sure he was really dead to them, untraceable."

Annabeth touches the tips of her fingers to her neck. CAMP everywhere, following her every step. She should've known. "And now they've got eyes on the ship."

"And now they've got eyes on the ship."

_And on Percy. _His name floats between them, unspoken. The drive core hums with the beat of the music. Leo gets back to work tinkering underneath a panel, but by the way his foot taps unsteady and frantic against the floor, she guesses he's not getting any work done.

They have to do something about the chips. She snuck off CAMP to track Luke down her own way. Having them follow her is not part of the plan.

"Stay here," she tells the bottom half of Leo's legs. "I'll be right back."

She leaves the engine room behind, pretends not to hear his grumbled "Great" as she limps back up the stairs.

The med bay is empty when she enters, in search of a scalpel and some of that quick-heal tape she'd turned down earlier. She swings by her room to grab her bag off the desk and follows the music back downstairs.

Leo is in the same position when Annabeth returns. She kicks his foot—gently, for her own sake—and eases herself into a sitting position in front of him. He pulls himself free and watches, wary, as she sets her supplies down and then pulls out her tablet.

Her broken tablet.

Cracks spiderweb across its surface, the edge of its plastic casing coming loose. The worrisome part is on the back, where the plastic has been warped and melted to the circuitry. It doesn't look like the memory's been touched—and she has backups, including the drive that rests at the bottom of her bag—but she won't be able to easily replace her tablet out here.

"I can fix that," Leo says, taking the tablet and tossing it towards his tool box. It bounces off a hammer and clatters to the floor. Another piece of its casing chips off. He waves it off. "So what are you doing with the sharp tools?"

"You're going to get the chip out of my neck." Annabeth passes him the scalpel. She turns, pulls her hair to the side so that he can easily find it. "If you're right, and I do have one, Luke could just as easily pick up the signal as CAMP could. We can't afford either to find us."

"You want me to cut into your neck. You realize if I even sneeze wrong I could slice into one of your veins."

Annabeth doubts it. He's a mechanic. He built a functioning Bolt out of scrap metal. A drive core like that requires the steadiest hands.

She says, instead, "I trust you."

Leo mumbles to himself, shuffles around, sighs heavily twice. Annabeth waits. Eventually his stubbornness dwindles and she feels the shift in the air, feels him kneel at her back, his fingers brushing back the short hairs at the nape of her neck. His fingers are hot and still against her skin.

"You ready?" he asks.

_Breathe_, she reminds herself. _Breathe. This is safest. This is your choice. _

The scalpel kisses her neck, presses down.


End file.
